I bought a used fish tank that came with a aqua tech filter but the bio foam/fiber is missing. I know this helps good bacteria to grow but is it necessary? I am going to put live plants in the tank & use some water & rocks from an established tank, but I'm not sure if this is enough to maintain good bacteria in the tank. Can anyone help me out??
it's not totally necessary but it will help. search biomax and you can buy some and put that in a little mesh bag and that will help cycle the tank. You never have to clean it and supposedly, you'll have a lot of nitrifying bacteria since they will colonize all those available sites on the biomax which are ceramic rings basically.
It's better to have to much bio surface than not enough. You don't have to get an exact replacement, but you should get some type of biological media. Bio stars are good, you can even just let them float around in the tank if they won't fit in your filter. A lot of fish stores will sell you used bio stars that are already established with bacteria which will help you cycle the tank a lot faster. So yes, I do feel like it is necessary to get some sort of bio-media to replace it :-)
